Baton-wielding police scattered hundreds of high school students who demonstrated on Saturday in Omdurman protesting an increase in the price of bread, witnesses said.

The students of three high schools in Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum, left their classes, gathered and marched through the streets, joined by passers-by, before their protest was broken up.

The official SUNA news agency, which said the price hike was 25 percent, quoted Foreign Trade Minister Abdel Hamid Mussa Kasha as saying the government "has nothing to do with the increase." SUNA quoted Omdurman Province Commissioner Abdel Malik al-Birair as blaming the increase and the ensuing protests to "lack of coordination" between the concerned government authorities and the owners of bakeries. (Albawaba.com)